In a guided vehicle system, each of guided vehicles stores a map of a travel route. A layout of the travel route, and attribute data such as positions of load ports and buffers, and data about transfer to/from the load ports and buffers are written in the map. For example, the layout data is vector data indicating the positions of branch sections and merge sections, the length of each straight segment, the position and the radius of curvature of each curve segment, and the angle between the entrance and the exit of the curve.
At the time of newly providing the guided vehicle system, CAD data for constructing travel rails, load ports, buffers or the like is created. For example, the CAD data includes information about connection relationship between rail units such as straight rail units, branch rail units, merge rail units, and curve rail units, and the numbers of these rail units. These rail units are standardized. For example, positions of the branch sections, the merge sections, and the curve segments are roughly determined, and the numbers of the straight units and the curve units are counted using the CAD data for determining the length of each straight segment, and the positions of the branch sections, the merge sections, and the curve segments. Further, an operator manually picks up attribute data from the CAD data, and inputs the attribute data in the map. In this manner, the map data is created manually from the CAD data. Therefore, creation of the map is laborious.
In the specification, the map data is also simply referred to as the map, and the layout data is also simply referred to as the layout.